abqjournal News: More Abused, Neglected Children Left at Home

SPECIAL PROJECTS
Millennium
Beaten at the Border
Trinity: 50 Years Later

NATIONAL NEWS
New York Times

The Nando Times

RealAudio: ABC News

MAGAZINES
TIME Magazine

USNews Magazine

Wired Magazine

The New Republic

Congressional Quarterly

Return to this SPECIAL REPORT page

FOURTH IN A SERIES
More Abused, Neglected Children Left at Home
Fixing Broken Families Doesn't Guarantee Lives

By Colleen Heild
Journal Investigative Reporter

He was an ex-con convicted of shooting his wife and using his two young sons as a shield during a police standoff.

But after his release from prison in 1990, the state of New Mexico deemed him fit to care for his six children.

Within three years, he was arrested for raping his 5-year-old daughter. An investigation revealed she also had been molested by a baby sitter and several of her older brothers.

* * *

Last October, an angry Ruben Duran took his 2-year-old son outdoors to change his diaper.

Duran two years earlier had come to the attention of Child Protective Services for mistreating his other children.

While hosing off the boy's bottom that day, he allegedly inserted the garden hose into the child's rectum and let the water run.

The boy died two days later. His father was charged with child abuse resulting in death.

* * *

These were the kids the state left at home. Despite past problems, the state decided the children were safe enough to stay with their parents.

CASE STUDY
Granddaughter's Pain Led Woman To Turn In Abuser -- Her Son

That's happening more often these days.

Since 1990, CYFD data shows, the number of abused or neglected children who remain with their parents each year has jumped more than 200 percent.

The state Children, Youth and Families Department has been following a national trend of working with abusive parents whenever possible instead of removing their children to state foster care.

"Troubled families can change," the CYFD policy manual states.

But children's advocates fear that the state is allowing some abused and neglected children to remain in dangerous circumstances when they should be removed.

The Journal has found:

* While reports of child abuse and neglect escalated in New Mexico in 1995 -- there were 28,000 -- the number of children taken into state custody dropped to its lowest level in four years.

* In some cases, CYFD received multiple reports of abuse before seeking to remove a child to state custody.

* In the two cases cited above, the families had been enrolled in CYFD's family-preservation program -- which typically receives high praise for its success.

But the majority of families found to have abused or neglected their children don't receive such intensive services. Some don't receive services at all.

* Critics say some CYFD social workers lack the experience to make correct decisions on whether to remove a child. Since the decision to seek custody of a child is the agency's alone, there is no way to tell what happens to children left with their parents.

* Some children's advocates suspect CYFD may have other motives for keeping children at home, such as reducing the incidence of being sued or because foster homes are in short supply.

CYFD officials say they hope to expand in-home services and implement ways to better assess whether children are at risk and should be removed from their parents.

But no method is foolproof, CYFD Secretary Heather Wilson said.

"There's no way to avoid risks," she said in a written statement last year. "That is the heartbreaking part of child abuse social work."

A last resort
It is "always unreasonable to leave a child in a circumstance where they're more likely than not to be harmed."
PETER CUBRA

Nationally, from 30 percent to 50 percent of children killed by their parents or caretakers had been the subject of earlier reports to child welfare agencies. These victims were either left in their homes or returned there after short-term removal, experts say.

In New Mexico, social workers and supervisors consult with CYFD attorneys and decide whether the state should seek custody and remove a child from the home. And a court must approve.

Foster care typically is a last resort reserved for the most serious cases.

That's because CYFD is bound by law to make "reasonable efforts" to keep or reunite abused and neglected children with their parents.

Yet, the agency also has a duty to protect children in danger.

Since 1990, the department has attempted to balance its missions by offering intensive in-home counseling and other services.

"You don't take the kid out of the home if it's not necessary, because removal is a traumatic event," said Peter Cubra, head of Advocacy Inc., which represents abused and neglected children in Bernalillo County.

But he said it is "always unreasonable to leave a child in a circumstance where they're more likely than not to be harmed."

Over the past six years, children CYFD confirmed as abused or neglected have been increasingly left with their biological families, CYFD data show.

In 1990, 58 percent of children deemed abused and neglected were placed in the state's care.

That dropped to 29 percent in 1995.

Generally, CYFD social workers don't remove children if counseling and other services will lower the risk to the child and the parents agree to participate.

If parents refuse or the danger to the child is too great, the state generally seeks custody.

But even when children are removed and placed in foster care, most ultimately return home.

Children get court-appointed lawyers to look after their interests only if the state seeks custody.

"So these kids (who aren't removed) have no advocate," Cubra said.

Of 28,000 (child abuse and neglect) referrals made last year, "we only know what happened to 2,477 (taken into state custody)," he said. "The rest are behind a secret curtain where only the department knows."

Typically, the state files about a dozen custody cases a month in Bernalillo County.

TRAGIC ENDINGS
CYFD hoped its family preservation program would work for an ex-convict and his six children and for toddler Ruben Duran Jr.'s family. It didn't.

Court records show that the 25-year-old father of six served two years in prison for aggravated assault with a deadly weapon and child abuse.

During the 1987 incident, his wife was grazed on the head when a gun they were struggling over discharged, court records show. When police tried to arrest him, he placed two of his children against the window in front of him and put a choke hold on one, an Eddy County criminal complaint states.

His wife left the family, and the children went to foster care.

CYFD put family preservation services into the home after the man returned from prison.

"The judge was looking at this caseworker's long letter saying he was the perfect papa," said a lawyer familiar with the case.

The children's court-appointed lawyer, volunteer court special advocates, and teachers and relatives either wrote letters or came to court and objected to the return, the lawyer said.

But the caseworker from the family preservation program "had just such a tremendous report that the judge couldn't ignore it."

Three years after getting out of prison, the man was arrested for sexually assaulting his 5-year-old daughter. He was convicted Aug. 13, 1994, of criminal sexual penetration. A 38-year-old male baby sitter was also convicted of molesting the girl.

Evidence also emerged that several of the boys in the family had also molested her, an assistant district attorney said.

CYFD officials said confidentiality laws prevent them from commenting about specific cases.

Ruben O. Duran of Artesia received family preservation services in October 1994 after CYFD received reports of abuse and neglect at his home. Two years later, he was charged with his 29-month-old son's death.

He has been undergoing psychological testing to determine competency to stand trial.

The Associated Press reported that the elder Duran initially told Artesia police that on Oct. 16, 1996, he had a fit of rage, spanked the child and put the hose down the toddler's throat and let the water run at half force for 30 seconds to one minute.

Investigators later learned the hose was placed in the child's rectum.

Duran also told police that after the hose was removed, the child stumbled up to the house and banged on the door for help. Then the boy collapsed.

He died on Oct. 18 at Presbyterian Hospital in Albuquerque.

But 14 cases were filed over a five-month period from October 1995 to the end of February 1996, Cubra said. He believes CYFD left children in "dangerous circumstances" during that time.

Since then, the rate of removals has returned to normal, Cubra said.

Deborah Hartz, CYFD's director of protective services, said she didn't know what caused the slowdown last year.

1,600 kids, 732 foster homes
"I don't think abuse suddenly stops. What this tells me is ... foster homes are full so they aren't removing kids."
ANDREA LENWAY

Social workers say a greater variety of counseling, parenting and other services allows CYFD to keep more children at home.

But some children's advocates question whether the decision too often is driven by the shortage of foster care facilities.

"We've had social workers say, what good is it for them to take them because they don't have any foster homes and All Faiths (crisis shelter) is full," said Carolyn Griffin, executive director of Cuidando Los Niños, which runs an Albuquerque day care center for children of homeless families.

At last count, the state had 1,600 children in foster care and only 732 foster homes.

Andrea Lenway, a children's lawyer in Alamogordo, said only two custody cases were filed in a recent five-month period in Otero County.

At the time, she said, all seven foster homes in the county were full.

"I don't think abuse suddenly stops," Lenway said. "What this tells me is ... foster homes are full so they aren't removing kids."

Albuquerque lawyer William S. Dixon said a 1989 U.S. Supreme Court ruling provides a disincentive for CYFD to take children into state custody.

The court ruled that social workers can't be held liable for damages for failing to remove a child from an abusive biological home.

Liability attaches once a child is placed in state custody.

Under the ruling, helpless children can be left with "abusive parents even when state officials have actual knowledge that abuse is going on and fail to take action to prevent it," Dixon said.

Wilson and other CYFD officials dismissed that as a reason for fewer removals. They said they hadn't even heard of the ruling.

The state has paid more than $4 million to settle foster care abuse lawsuits in the past five years.

Children's advocates say they have seen cases in which CYFD received from seven to 10 reports of child abuse or neglect before removing a child.

"It's one family after another that they have not responded to ... families with multiple referrals of serious allegations for young kids, and they haven't done doodily on them," said one former CYFD supervisor who still works in the social services area.

Some families have had up to 20 abuse and neglect complaints over the span of a decade before CYFD has taken the children into custody.

"By then, it's already a lost cause," said Pat Briggs, who works with the Bernalillo County citizen review board, which monitors cases of children in custody.

Briggs said it's better to remove a child at a younger age and before the abusive parents have other children. "There's a lot better chance of change for the parent and for the child."

Brian Meyer, a deputy director in CYFD's Protective Services Division, said CYFD is concerned about multiple referrals.

Meyer said CYFD hopes to catch families earlier by changing the method by which social workers assess risks to children.

CYFD says it cannot go to court to remove a child without having evidence that abuse or neglect occurred.

Under the new plan, Meyer said, social workers could seek custody of children at high risk of re-abuse even if specific complaints of abuse can't be confirmed.

Griffin, of Cuidando Los Niños, believes better cooperation between CYFD social workers and other professionals in the community is needed.

"They don't seem to be trained enough to know when a child may be at risk," Griffin said. "We have more education and experience than the bulk of the workers. They just don't act like anything we say is valid."

Since 1990, "family preservation" services have been offered to high-risk families in New Mexico as an alternative to removing children from their parents.

The program, which state lawmakers encouraged as a way to lessen the need for foster homes, puts intensive services in the home for four to six weeks, according to a CYFD policy manual.

Meyer said 90 percent of families haven't had a new abuse or neglect complaint reported within two years of completing the program.

To participate, a child must be at high risk of abuse, neglect or delinquency, but the safety of the child can't be jeopardized by staying at home.

The voluntary program exists in other states and will be expanded to 14 of New Mexico's 33 counties this year, Meyer said.

CYFD documents show that less than 10 percent of the families who had abused or neglected their children in 1994 had been accepted into the program.

Some families received less intensive CYFD services.

"But in other areas (of the state), there are not enough human and material resources to deliver these services," the report continued.

"Too often, the family with substantiated child abuse or neglect problems receives nothing," according to the CYFD Family Preservation and Family Support Plan dated September 1995.

The plan stressed the need for expansion of in-home services.

A former CYFD supervisor said the family preservation movement is good, but "it's like they've gone too much in the other way."

The former official, who works with a social service agency, said, "Every family I've had here has had family preservation, and they've still been re-referred (for possible abuse and neglect) because the problems were not addressed."

Meyer said CYFD is seeking a grant to offer "midlevel family preservation" to reach more families. The services would be less intensive but last four to six months.

Meyer said abused or neglected children who aren't taken into custody and whose families don't receive family preservation typically are the less-serious cases.